Decisions
by Stella the Hedgehog
Summary: The young warrior Bluefur steps out on a frosty night to deliver her kits to Oakheart. OneShot.


A/N: I started writing this OneShot one particularly boring English class. It's about Bluefur, and her journey to deliver her kits to Oakheart. So...yeah.

Disclaimer: I don't own Warriors, Erin Hunter does, yada yada yada...

A sound of rustling leaves, and then silence. A silver face pushed carefully out of the brambles on the edge of the clearing, a silver kitten clamped firmly but gently in her powerful jaws. She flicked her tail nervously and padded silently across the camp toward a narrow gorse tunnel. Two kits, one gray and the other brown, stumbled after carefully, following their mother's scent. A light snow was falling, illuminating the whole forest white.

The brown she-kit, Pinekit, flicked her ears disapprovingly as cold flakes fell on her head. When they were finally out of the camp, the queen set Pinekit's sister down beside her. "We musn't make a sound." she reminded the kits. Although they were still too young to speak and barely old enough to walk, she insructed each confidently. "We're going to your father."

The four cats padded through the forest quietly, the silver queen looking over her shoulder nervously every few moments. Her name was Bluefur. The ThunderClan she-cat had decided half a moon ago, at the last Gathering, that she would take her three kits, Mistykit, Stonekit, and Pinekit; to the river. There, Oakheart would take the kits back to RiverClan. Unknown to both the kittens and the rest of ThunderClan and RiverClan, Oakheart was the father of the kits.

Bluefur reminded herself again why she was making this journey. She knew that this leaf-bare would be harder than usual. The Twolegs in the forest had brought a prey shortage all through leaf-fall, so why should leaf-bare be different? And how could ThunderClan afford to take care of the three kittens when the warriors who hunted all day barely had enough to fill their bellies? The other reason, Bluefur recalled, was because the clan deputy was retiring. Tawnyspots was a brave deputy, but she had grown old. Bluefur knew that she had a great chance of becoming a deputy, but what leader in their right mind would choose a nursing queen to fill in Tawnyspot's place?

As thrilling as the prospect of being deputy sounded, Bluefur knew she was really doing it so that Thistleclaw would not become deputy. Thistleclaw had been her long-time rival, ever since their apprenticeship. And if he became leader, she knew, he would lead the clan to it's death. A strong warrior he was, his answer to every predicament and problem was a fight. "I will not watch my clan be torn apart." she had decided early on.

So giving the kits to Oakheart was best for everybody. Everybody except Bluefur. With each step, she could feel her heart tear. She loved her kits more than everything, but the risk of keeping them in ThunderClan was too great. "Oakheart, take care of them well." she murmured aloud.

"Oh, I will." a voice sounded behind Bluefur. She whirled around, claws unsheathed and ready to fight. She relaxed at the sight of Oakheart's tabby pelt. She pressed her muzzle against his flank for comfort.

"This is so hard." Bluefur murmured. "But it's best for ThunderClan, right?"

"I assure you, Bluefur, the kits will be looked after." Oakheart mewed. "What are their names?"

"This one is Stonekit," the queen replied, nudging the dark grey tom gently. "The other grey one is Mistykit. And the brown one..." Bluefur looked around in confusion. "Where's Pinekit?"

Oakheart looked around. He let out a cry of alarm as he looked behind Bluefur. She turned to see what he was looking at, and for a moment, she was frozen with horror. Pinekit was laying by the river, mewing pitifully. Her eyes were glazed over, but her face was emotionless and she was still. "Oakheart, what's going on?" Bluefur mewed timidly.

"She's freezing to death. There is nothing much we can do for her. Maybe if we lay with her, then our body heat would be enough to warm her." Oakheart replied, already padding over to where the limp brown body lay in the snow. He curled his dark tabby body around her, rasping a tongue over her ear. He flicked his tail, summoning Bluefur to where he lay.

Bluefur lay on the kit's other side, licking it gently. Mistykit and Stormkit tumbled over to where their parents lay, and the four of them watched Pinekit anxiously. But the kit's breathing slowed, and soon stopped. Bluefur nosed the tiny body. "She's dead." the queen murmured. "She was the runt of the litter. I knew she would die eventually."

The queen and her mate sat for the longest time, staring at the sun as it peeked over the trees on the RiverClan side of the river. They were awakened from their trance only when they heard Stormkit mew hungrily. "Oakheart, you should go. Your kits are going to need nursing." she meowed.

"Our kits." the tom corrected. "And I promise that they will be healthy in RiverClan." He gave Bluefur a final lick before gently picking up Mistykit by the scruff of the neck. Bluefur did the same with Stormkit, and they hopped across the stepping stones together.

As soon as Bluefur's paws hit the snowy ground on the other side of the river, she knew that this was goodbye to her kits. They would never know of their birth clan, of their mother, of the joys of running through the ThunderClan woods. They wouldn't know that they were ThunderClan, or that their mother was really Bluefur, and not the queen that Oakheart had chosen in RiverClan. And Bluefur knew that she would never be able to share tongues with her kits, to smell their warm scent, or feel their gentle breathing as they slept. This would all be lost to her. A single silver tear fell from her eye into the snow as she watched Oakheart walk off into RiverClan territory with her beautiful kits trailing behind.

As Bluefur made her way back to her camp, a vole clamped in her jaws, she remembered the way she was going to hide her secret. She had ripped a hole in the nursery wall nefore she had left. She would tell the clan that she had left her kits to hunt for a moment, and that a badger must hae gotten them. At the moment when she was nearing the gorse tunnel, a white body bounded out of the bracken. "Hi Bluefur!" the young warrior mewed enthusiastically.

"Good morning, Whitestorm." Bluefur nodded to the warrior. "I just stepped out to hunt for a moment."

"Good idea. There is no fresh-kill in camp, can you believe it?" Whitestorm mewed. His eyes widened. "Wait, Bluefur, where are your kits?"

"I left them sleeping in the nursery." she lied. "They were asleep."

As the younder cat nodded and bounded off, Bluefur wished desperately that she could see her kits again. Her stomach ached painfully, and she longed to rush to the riverClan camp, to make sure that the kits had made the trip safely. But she forced her paws to march on to her own camp. StarCla had destined her kits to follow a different path, but the path seemed so far away.

A/N: R+R!


End file.
